Since the Erasmus Plus program is being offered at our school many student, like myself, take the opportunity of working abroad. Normally we tend to do this in the forth year. Due to the unexpected corona situation and the subsequent restrictions, I was not able to do my internship in London last year. However, that did not stop me of wanting to collect work experience in another country. I applied to be part of Erasmus this year again and luckily after some uncertainty I was able to actually do it. 

Knowing that I could do the internship, I then had to choose what city I would like to work in. Because I was busy with getting my A-Levels at that time, I knew that I did not want to organise the work placement by myself like I intended to do so last year, but to let an organization plan it. So, I looked at the options where there were organizations and the following places were my favourites: Barcelona, Malta and Dublin. 

After gathering some information and further thinking I came to the conclusion that Barcelona would be the best option, even though I was not able to speak Spanish. At first going to work in a country where you do not speak the language might seem a little bold, but let me tell you in the end I think it really was the best decision. 

Barcelona is naturally a highly interconnected city. The people and the companies are very international and this is quite likely also the main reason why I accepted to go to Barcelona and probably also the fact that I am a quite open-minded person and keen on learning Spanish. 

What came as a surprise to me, was that my work placement had an even broader linguistic range than I expected. Our boss for instance was able to speak Spanish, English, French, German and even Arabic. All of my other coworkers were able to speak Spanish, English as well as French perfectly. So, communication wise I had no worries. 

Apart from the language aspect the work itself I had somewhat anticipated as I was mainly working in the Accounting department. It included working together with the previously above-mentioned CEO, the Accounting Manager and also the Digital Communication Manager, who was also responsible for the interns and administrative tasks.

All in all, I can say that it was a valuable working experience and I can only recommend it to others who are thinking about working abroad and gaining an insight into the international working world.